Vande Mataram: CUK students boycott classes, stage sit-in after five students suspended

Kasaragod: The student protest against the presence of RSS leaders at a national seminar on Vande Mataram has escalated into a full-blown crisis at the Central University of Kerala, with tensions mounting both inside and outside the campus.

The latest flashpoint is the suspension of five students who allegedly took part in a protest that disrupted the presentation by Chief Proctor Sreekumar P, who is also the university's disciplinary authority, at the seminar.

Students cutting across political affiliations, except for the RSS's Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), boycotted classes on Friday and are staging a sit-in protest in front of the Administrative Block, demanding the withdrawal of the suspension order. The protests started Thursday night when the five students got their suspension orders from their respective heads of the departments.

Outside, the SFI Kasaragod district committee took out a protest march to the university, but the police barricaded the gate and put up a water cannon behind it.
When the protesters tried to remove the barbed barricade, the police fired a water cannon at them.

The protest was led by SFI central committee member Bibinraj Payam, SFI district president Anuraj M, and district secretary Mohammed Adhinan.

"We will boycott classes and continue the protests inside till the suspension orders are revoked. The proctor, Prof Sreekumar P, should also resign from the post," he said Aaved V B, a student of the Department of International Relations and Politics, and one of the five students suspended by the university.

The other students suspended are SFI CUK secretary Syed Ali S, a second-year MSW student; NSUI unit president Mohammed Yasin, an MA English student; Muslim Students Federation (MSF) leader Taqiyuddin, a Computer Science student; and MSF activist Shabeer.
They were suspended by the proctor, Prof Sreekumar, who is the disciplinary authority of the university.

The protests started when the Sahitya Akademi under the Union Ministry of Culture organised a two-day national seminar held on October 6 and 7 to mark the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram on the campus in Periya. The Sahitya Akademi organised the event in collaboration with the Akhil Bharatiya Sahitya Parishad, a literary organisation affiliated with the RSS.

On the first day, students protested against the presence of RSS leaders at the seminar. They particularly objected to the participation of J Nandakumar, national convenor of the RSS's intellectual wing, Prajna Pravah.

Police managed to keep the protesters outside the seminar venue.

The confrontation escalated on the second day, October 7, after Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, addressing the valedictory function, dubbed the protest against the RSS presence an agitation against Vande Mataram and called for action against the protesters.

His remarks triggered the second round of protests on campus. Students disrupted a presentation by Sreekumar P, a professor in the Department of Linguistics, and raised 'RSS Go Back' slogans in the auditorium.

The police, who were called in, intervened and brought the situation under control, but Prof Sreekumar could not complete his presentation.
The police later registered a case of unlawful assembly and rioting against 25 unnamed students.

Later on Thursday evening, Prof Sreekumar suspended the five students, triggering the third round of protests inside and outside the campus.

The students said the administration refused to talk to them for 16 hours when they were on protest. Around 1.10 pm, Registrar (in-charge) Prof V B Sameer Kumar agreed to hear out the seven student representatives. "The rest of the students will continue to protest in the administrative block," said Ajay, an MBA student.